Future Lost
by Meinos Kaen
Summary: Presented with the choices of either fighting against his village or erasing his whole clan, he chose voluntary exile. What possessed the Hokage's counsellors to ask this of a thirteen year old pacifist, we will never know, but we do know what happened right after. The fight lasted ten days, and the village was torn apart... [AU]


_Prologue_

"Alright, class. Settle down." His words went over their heads like they had never been pronounced. The man sighed, since this was a common occurrence with every single first year class he taught. He cleared his throat and raised his voice a little. "Class, don't make me give you detention on the first day." That made the trick. The man smiled and rubbed the scar on his nose before taking the last few steps to his desk.

"Since it's your first day of school, it's tradition that I narrate a story. A story that can answer many of the questions that you have about our village." The man settled down on the desk the classroom's register, and fixated his eyes on the rows of children in front of him. "Why we can't leave the village. Why there were many parts of it that are crumbling, about to fall apart. A few still are. Why there's that big hole in the mountain that destroyed three of the four faces carved there."

The man moved his hand so that the children's gazes shifted to the window. Indeed, there was a mountain where once four great faces had been carved of four great men but the first two and part of the third one had been wiped out. It was like an angry ogre had decided to eat part of the mountain. "Open your scrolls and we will begin."

All the children obeyed, some whispering to each other as they opened their identical scrolls, all with the same title: 'History of Konoha'.

-FutureLost-

_The village of Konohagakure originated in a time where shinobi still lived in clans, waging war with each other over territory and influence. In the Fire Country, two clans were the most prominent and powerful: the Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan._

_These two clans were in conflict for a long time, but in the end they reached a peaceful agreement: unite their clans and many of the other ones in the Fire Country in a single military organization, the first hidden village in the history of the Elemental Countries. This truce found its only enemy in Uchiha Madara, leader of the Uchiha Clan. He eventually decided to challenge Hashirama Senju, leader of the Senju Clan, for the leadership of Konoha. He found himself alone in his endeavour, since no Uchiha would back him up, accusing him of wanting to reignite the flames of war._

_Madara was defeated. Years down the road the second Hokage Tobirama Senju, Hashirama's younger brother, offered the Uchiha clan the position of the Konoha Police Force. A symbol of trust on the surface, but it really was a way to control the Uchiha clan and keep them out of Konoha's governing. Many of the clan members realized this, but too late. The Senju had become the predominant clan in the village even if their Kekkei Genkai was disappearing and the Uchiha, so easy to follow in their legendary leader's footsteps, were discriminated and secluded.[…]_

_The ultimate demise of the once proud Konohagakure came eight years after the attack of the Kyuubi and the death of the Yondaime, during the second reign of the Sandaime. The Uchiha clan had never forgotten the offence received years before, and the fact that many began to suspect that behind the demon's attack there was the Uchiha clan didn't help. Their bloodline was the only one left able to control the Bijuu, with the Senju now extinct._

_The leader of the clan, Uchiha Fugaku, became the ring-leader of the planned coup d'état that would shake the village's foundation. He used his talented son, Uchiha Itachi, as a spy, using his position in the ANBU and the high spheres of the village at the young age of 13 to gather information. Uchiha Itachi was though a pacifist, and unknown to his clan he became a double agent for the village. The Sandaime, Sarutobi Hizuren, tried to negotiate with the clan but time was running short, and his advisors overrun him. Itachi, the most talented and powerful of the Uchiha, was ordered to wipe out his entire clan._

-FutureLost-

"Why…" They say that men are allowed to cry in few occasions only. In most people's opinion, it's just a joke, bull. Everyone has different feelings and reasons for crying. This was one of them for Uchiha Itachi. A lot of pressure had been applied on the thirteen years old. First his clan's plan for a coup d'état, then the village asking him to be a double-agent. And then they had given him the order to kill his whole clan because the Hokage couldn't start a negotiate with the elders. The event that had just transpired was the proverbial last drop.

His cousin who he loved like an older brother, Uchiha Shisui, had discovered something about him. Maybe just a small detail of his life as a double-agent, but enough to want to meet him in an isolated place and start to question him. Itachi decided to take a gamble. He knew that Shisui had influence on the elders. He was his last hope. He told him everything. Shisui didn't disappoint him. Maybe it wasn't exactly moral, but Shisui had agreed to try and use his ultimate genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami, on the elders, to brainwash them into wanting peace.

The plans had been foiled by one Danzo Shimura. That left Itachi crying over the corpse of his cousin, holding his last remaining eye which he quickly sealed away in a scroll, lest he went crazy staring at it.

He slammed his fists on the ground. He hiccuped and then saw his hands, dirty with the older man's blood. He had seen blood on his hands but never the blood of a loved one, of family, of someone so close. He shivered and went to the nearby stream to clean himself. He splashed his hands and face with water and then he noticed something. "What…" He had seen something different in him, in his eyes. His Sharingan was different. It was like the three tomoes had enlarged and taken a triangular shape. "This…"

"Congratulations, young one. You have awakened the final stage of the Sharingan." Itachi's head snapped up and he turned around in a flash, a kunai already in his hand. A stranger had just appeared, dressed in large black and red robes, with a few pieces of armour, the shoulder pieces being the most prominent. His face was covered with an orange swirling mask. "It is something that few in our clan have achieved."

"… Our clan?" Itachi wasn't an ANBU captain for nothing. He had analyzed the stranger's words as they came out of its mouth. "You're an Uchiha?"

"A most prominent one, even if my own kin has betrayed and shunned me decades ago. The only thing that now associates me with you and the others are the eyes we share." The masked stranger replied, a gust of wind moving his long black hair. Itachi immediately connected the dots, as unbelievable as what he had just guessed sounded.

"Uchiha Madara." He whispered, but loud enough for the man to hear his words. The elder Uchiha nodded in approval.

"You really are the prodigy of your generation. I find pride in finding my blood so strong in one so young." Madara continued, but Itachi didn't relax at all. The elder man observed his surroundings. "You're shaken. I take it you didn't wish for his death?"

"I don't wish for anyone's death." Itachi said, his hand squeezing around his weapon.

"And yet your clan plans to stage a coup that will tear Konoha in half and the council asked you to wipe out your entire clan to avoid that, going as far as murdering the last hope to a peaceful solution for it. Either the blood of an entire clan or the blood of part of the village. A though choice, child. Either way, lots of blood to have on your hands." Madara said, earning more squeezing on Itachi's part.

"I already have the blood of an Uchiha on my hands. A loved one. What will one more matter? My soul is damned." Itachi gritted his teeth. He had tried to share his burden with Shisui, and had only gotten him killed in the process. His death was on his hands.

"Do not be foolish, young one. What has happened to your eyes should be enlightening enough." That was the first thing that surprised Itachi of all the words the Uchiha elder had said. "The Magenkyou Sharingan is not something that can be obtained by training or with time. You have to meet a certain condition." Itachi for maybe the first time in his life was drawing a blank. "What emotion is wrecking your being right now, young one?"

"What emotion… The activation of the Magenkyou Sharingan requires an emotion?" Madara emitted a muffled laugh.

"I'll give you a hint. I obtained mine when my brother offered me his life and his eyes." Itachi didn't understand what the man said with 'offered his eyes', but he had enough hints to understand the rest.

"… Guilt." Itachi stated, lowering his kunai. "The emotion that triggers the Magenkyou is _guilt_, or similarly strongly negative emotion."

"Exactly… Heh. You know, ninjas barely feel guilty anymore about killing someone. Otherwise, they would be unable to do their job. But you? You're different. I wonder…" Madara paused for a few instants, weighting his thoughts. "What would happen to you if you slaughtered your whole clan? How much guilt would you bear?"

Itachi began to tremble, as images upon images began to fill his mind.

"Maybe you could unlock a new, more powerful Sharingan. Its evolution is a mystery to me as well." Madara continued, chuckling darkly.

"… Never again." Itachi let his kunai clatter to the floor as images of taking his mother's and brother's lives fluttered in his mind. He didn't want to do that. He didn't want them to look at him with hate in their eyes. "I will never soil my hands with Uchiha blood."

"So you're going to help your clan?" Itachi just walked past the elder Uchiha, stopping a couple meters behind him.

"No. I love my village, and I will never act against its people, but I will neither submit to the wishes of the elders and soil my hands with the blood of my own relatives." He spared one last glance at the creek where Shisui's body now rested before turning around again.

"Uchiha Itachi chooses exile, then? A selfish choice... Or maybe the most normal one." Madara continued, amusement clear in his voice. "You said that you would never spill Uchiha blood. Does that include me?"

"Do you intend to do harm to the clan or the village?" Itachi said, slowly turning around, his Magenkyou flashing to life again. He had no idea why the supposed dead patriarch of the Uchiha clan was in Konoha again, after all.

"The truth? I was here to rekindle the flames of war in Konoha." Madara stroked his chin from over his mask, which hid his vicious smile. "But the Konoha Elders and the Uchiha Clan have been doing it far better that I could have ever had! No need to sully my hands!" A boisterous laugh which sent Itachi's blood boiling.

"Reignite the flames of war? For what reason?" Itachi asked, to which Madara replied with another, more subdued, round of laughter.

"Itachi-kun, at the moment the most pressing matter to you should be running away. When they find Shisui's body there will be quite the uproar, right?" Itachi tensed and then disappeared in a cloud of smoke, knowing that Madara was right. There was going to be quite the uproar, and the Uchiha prodigy couldn't bear to be there to see it.

-FutureLost-

_Presented with the choices of either fighting against his village or erasing his whole clan, he chose voluntary exile. The proverbial rock and hard place. What possessed the Hokage's counsellors to ask this of a thirteen year old pacifist, we will never know, but we do know what happened right after._

_The coup d'état failed and what started a few days later was an all out war, with its battlefield being the village, which was torn apart in every sense of the word. The ninja population split in two factions, those who still supported the Hokage and those who chose to help the Uchiha; the village itself was ravaged and destroyed, the most evident damage being the destruction of vast part of 'Mount Hokage'. The fights lasted ten days. After that, both factions understood that a battle of attrition was useless, since there wasn't a Konoha to reign over anymore._

_The Uchiha left for the eastern part of Fire Country, the Hokage faction for the west, leaving a ravaged Konoha with thousands of casualties to the survivors and the ninjas who chose to protect instead of fighting, remaining faithful to Konoha's true spirit. Leaving them to savage and rebuild._

"Outside of the village, the Uchiha and the Senju are still fighting, but their battlefield has now extended to the whole Fire Country. Do you understand, now? And do you understand why ninja training is now obligatory for every child?" The man said, looking around, finding the usual cluster of reactions: some scared children, some surprised ones, some angry ones, and of course the ones with questions. "Yes?"

"Iruka-sensei…" A brow-haired girl, who had raised her hand timidly. "I wanted to ask… I saw someone, an older boy… With lots of twins. Is that a ninja technique? Will we learn it?"

"Ah." Iruka was a bit taken aback from the question, but a smile immediately came to his lips as he understood just who the girl was referring to and to what technique. The event that led to the meeting of the two factors was a dear one to him.

_"Naruto, you can't just go and learn one of the techniques written in that scroll! They're forbidden of a reason!"_

_"Then what's the use in having this scroll?! It's one of the few things that those village-breaking bastards left us that can be used in some way!" Iruka was stunned from the blond child's sudden outburst, but more so by the fire, the determination he saw in his eyes. "The village needs as many strong ninjas as possible, right?! I will be the strongest of the strong! I will do everything and take any risk! I will _**_never_**_ let something like that happen again! Ever again!"_

"Yes, that is a ninja technique that sadly only the person who you saw multiplied all over the place can use to its full potential, and no, you will not be learning that at the academy." The girl pouted and sat down. He shook his head and stifled a laugh. _'You amuse me even when you're not around, heh, Naruto?'_

**Future Lost**

**Chapter 1: The ones left behind**

"Hmm…" He picked one of the nails he was holding in his mouth and held it win one hand on the wood board he was holding with the other hand. "Alright. Hammer it down."

"Aye, aye, boss." One of his 'twins' held up the hammer over his head and then began to land clean, precise blows on the nail till it was safely put. The original grinned and grabbed the nails left in his mouth with one of his hands, using the back of that same hand to wipe the sweat that had escaped his bandanna from his forehead.

"Another building successfully repaired by the one-man-work-force!" He said with a grin, putting his utensils back into the pockets hanging by the back of his belt, before dispelling his clone in a cloud of smoke. He looked at his handiwork, the building they had finished repairing. He liked to look at everything from different points of view, including sticking horizontally to a wall. "And just in time for lunch!"

"Is that everything you think about when you're not being a workaholic?" He rolled his eyes, expecting those words sooner or later. He had seen her arriving a few minutes before, after all. He crouched down against the wall and somersaulted, flipping in air a few times before landing just beside his 'offender', who was now staring at him from above, a teasing smile adorning her features. "Honestly, you…"

"Awww, but Ten-chan, work makes one hungry, and ramen eaten after a day of hard work is the best tasting ramen in the world!" He got back up with a grin plastered on his face. The girl rolled her chocolate eyes and then brought to the front the bento she was hiding behind her back.

"Since we're going to eat ramen this evening as well, for lunch you're going to enjoy my bento, and that's final!" She shoved the wrapped box in his hands, which he accepted unsteadily.

"Nee, Ten-chan. You worry too much. As usual…" She bonked him playfully on the head with one hand.

"Since you don't worry at all, I have to do double the work." She then grabbed him by his left arm and started dragging him towards the nearby park, which had a few vacant benches. They found one in the shade of a tree. Naruto immediately set the bento down in his lap, unwrapped the box and clapped his hands a couple of times before grabbing his chopsticks and digging in with a loud 'Itadakimasu'.

TenTen grimaced at how piggish his manners were, being careful to not let flying rice get into her hair, but at the same time she couldn't fight back a light chuckle at how eager he seemed to eat her cooking. "You must be really hungry, can't be my cooking."

"Ahh, don't say that, Ten-chan. Your cooking is just fine, but you should stop bringing me bento so often." That made her confused and a bit upset, before he turned to her with a grin. "People could think you have a _crush_ on me."

"Y-You idiot! What are you saying?!" Naruto blanked as the girl blushed and suddenly materialized a kunai out of thin hair, which then whizzed just beside his head. He knew that the girl would never hit him, having a perfect aim, but it still was scary as hell when she did that. "Geez, and here I thought you didn't like having me around…"

"Ten-chan, that will never ever happen, and you know it. You're my best friend." Good thing TenTen was giving Naruto her back, otherwise he would have seen her gagging face as clear as day at the mention of those last two words. "How are things going at the forge?"

"Pretty good, I must say." She breathed in and out silently, to calm down, thankful for the change of subject. She turned back to him with a bright smile. "We've finally managed to make a stamp for something other than kunai and shuriken. We will be able to mass produce tantos from now on!"

"Eheheh… I bet you're the one who gave the finishing touch, hn?" Naruto said, flashing her a full smile. "Meet TenTen. Weapon-master kunoichi and forger extraordinaire." TenTen smiled while the blush was reduced to a little flush with his praise.

"Stop flattering me about my knowledge of weapons, casanova." TenTen said, stretching her arms over her head. Now she was the one who needed to change the subject, both because he was embarrassing her but at the same time even if he complimented her it wasn't with _that_ reason in mind, and that made her a little sad. Naruto was just that nice of a guy. "I guess it's one of the few good things that this situations has brought us."

"… Yeah." Naruto's face became serious at that, and he bit slowly into a rice ball, observing the children playing with their various toys. A couple more were putting a broken swing back into shape, and other yet were practicing with wooden kunai on a nearby tree. "Forcing everyone left in the village to learn both ninja skills and a set of normal ones."

"Incredible, huh? We're teens and we could already run our own activities." TenTen said, observing a bench that Naruto himself had built.

"In a normal village, yeah. But here? We've been through years of hell because of those selfish…" Naruto bit back a curse, his mood taking a turn for the worse. It couldn't be helped, it always happened every time he thought of the coup and the war. "Sorry, but-"

"I know. You get angry every time you think about it." TenTen knew that Naruto was angry at the people who had left Konoha in that state, and would always be for as long as they kept on hurting its citizens. And Naruto didn't just blame the Uchiha, he blamed the Senju as well, mainly because they had been the ones to start the war that destroyed the village he lived in. They attacked first, deliberately endangering the civilians.

"And to think I wanted to become Hokage…" Naruto laughed bitterly at himself. TenTen grabbed his shoulder, squeezing it in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. It must have been hard losing his dream, the people he looked up to and one of the few who treated him as a human being all at once.

"You still think…" TenTen tried to say, but Naruto turned to her sending the sharpest glare his eyes could muster.

"What else should I think?! He ordered to attack the Uchiha compound without even evacuating the village first! There have been thousands of deaths! An Hokage is supposed to protect the village! The village is the people that live in it, not a mountain or a name or reputation! I-" Naruto barked out in a loud enough voice for a couple of birds to leave the tree they were under. That seemed to make the blonde notice just how high his tone had been in those last few seconds, and to who he was directing them. He turned his head away, ashamed. "Sorry."

"It's okay. As you said, though, the Hokage is supposed to protect the people of the village, and the Sandaime has never done anything _but_." TenTen replied, used to Naruto's sudden outbursts. "I'm sure he's had a reason for ordering the attack."

"... What reason could ever warrant that?" Naruto shook his head, trying to clear his head from those kind of thoughts. He then scarfed down the rest of his lunch and hopped back to his feet. "Well, gotta go now. Thanks for the lunch, Ten-chan."

"Ehm, Naruto…" Naruto stopped walking before even beginning to do so. He turned to face TenTen, who was once again a bit flushed. "You know what day is tomorrow, right?"

"Uh? Well, yes. It would be strange if I didn't, right?" Naruto answered, ever the jester.

"You know, I kind of… Made you a present, so…" TenTen looked for a few seconds at her hands in her lap before getting back on her feet, tense. "What about I give it to you over dinner, tomorrow? My place?"

"Eh?" His reaction led to TenTen flushing even more. Confused, he scratched the back of his head. "Sure, I'll be there at seven?"

"… Thanks." TenTen smiled and then walked away, the expression now plastered on her face. Naruto watched her go, his right hand still on the back of his head.

"Her place?" Naruto's mind began to fill with weird images. He shook them off right away. "Ten-chan just wants me to give up ramen, I guess."_'Like I could ever do that…'_

-FutureLost-

The Konoha shelters carved inside mount Hokage had been shaped after the set of tunnels and caves dug out in the inside of another mountain, in the ancient grounds of the Senju. Easy to defend, easy to place sentinels on to spot incoming enemy parties. Because of its position and its efficiency as a stronghold, the Uchiha had never tried going for the Senju headquarters. Not at the time of warring clans, nor in eight years since Konoha's Civil War extended to the whole fire country and the Senju faction relocated there. And they weren't going to try anytime soon.

"Are you absolutely sure about this, Hiashi?" One of the common 'caves' had a particular importance. It had been covered with a dome of unbreakable glass like every other one, but this one had double the number of sentinels. It was the War Time Council chamber, where the leaders of the Senju met.

"Absolutely sure, Hokage-sama." The War Time Council was made up of the heads of the various clans that made up the Senju faction. Among these there was the Hyuuga clan, which was maybe the most important component of the faction. People possessing the Shodaime's bloodline limit were no longer existent but going against the Sharingan of the Uchiha, fabled as the strongest bloodline limit existent without another group of Kekkei Genkai possessors was a chimera. "We've been provided photographic proof. The forbidden scroll wasn't lost during the attack and survived the collapse of Hokage tower."

"It is a priority that we retrieve it before the Uchiha know of its existence, then." The head of the Nara clan and the Senju's master strategist, Shikaku, offered his opinion on the matter. "The scroll contains many techniques that were they to fall into the Uchiha's hands-"

"That's not the only reason the scroll's retrieval is a priority, though. Right, Sarutobi?" The Hokage didn't reply to Danzo's words. His mind was elsewhere as he kept his eyes fixed on other photographs that had been taken to him. Images of a blonde teenager with whiskers-like birthmarks on his cheeks. A teenager who was all over the place. At the same time.

"The young Uzumaki is using the Kage Bunshin." Choza, head of the Akimichi clan was observing one of the photographs that the Hokage had already seen. "He has access to the scroll."

"Sarutobi, in that scroll there's the technique that sealed the Kyuubi in his body and the way to break it, right?" Danzo continued, urging an intervention from the Hokage.

"What do you suggest?" The Hokage said, his tired voice the only thing betraying his age.

"Our man is waiting for a message via traveller bird to initiate the recovery of the scroll. We would extract him a few kilometres away from the village." Hiashi continued, his voice as cool and stoic as one man could muster.

"… I don't want any unnecessary casualties. Fast, stealthy." The Hokage slowly got up from his chair and grabbed a hold of his walking cane. He still needed help by one of his attendants to leave the room. "Solve this matter with the most haste."

-FutureLost-

After the Hokage left, the other members of the council quickly followed suit. Shikaku and Choza left together. Best friends, member of a trio that was once famous in Konoha. A trio that broke up when the village broke down.

"Have you seen his face?" Choza said mournfully, ever the sensitive man. The Hokage had started showing his age ever since the battle of Konoha. He had gotten more and more tired and weak with each passing day, the responsibility of his choices and the war bearing down on his shoulders. "It was like he regained his strength for one moment, and then ended up twice as tired as before."

"He has always thought of that child as his responsibility, and we all know the choices he's made over the years to protect him." Shikaku replied. The two walked through the tunnels, lighted only by never-ending flames. "But he will never be able to talk to him again, and even if he could... Did he ever tell you about their last meeting?"

"… Yes." Choza shook his head while opening the door to his private room. He collapsed onto his bed, feeling suddenly tired. That battle had taken a lot from them, and a lot more was going to be taken away. "… Why did the Uchiha have to be such nutcases, Shikaku?" Shikaku chose silence, seeing that Choza still hadn't finished his talking. "We would still be Ino-Shika-Cho trio, my wife would have never died and our boys, they wouldn't have… Jesus, I hardly recognize my boy anymore."

"War brings out many things in people. Most of them aren't positive." Shikaku went for Choza's cabinet. He knew where he kept the strong stuff, and he needed it as much as his friend at the moment. "And I fear we haven't seen the worst of it yet."

-FutureLost-

"Naruto-niichan!"

"Be down in a moment!" His little project just needed the finishing touch. The long part had been the clock's inner mechanism, since that was the only thing that he couldn't build himself. The rest of the structure, he had built over the last two years whenever he had free time from work or training and now it was finally finished. Each hammer blow brought him closer to completion and filled him with pride. The last one's noise poetically echoed a bit longer than the others.

"Yeeeeees!" Hearing his shout of satisfaction, the clone inside the clock tower activated the hydraulic pump, and soon the air was filled with a 'Tic-Tac'. The original Naruto dispelled his clones and threw his arms in the air. "I'm the best! I'm the be… _Woah!_" Too bad it was mid-day, and the loud sounds signalling the passing of the hour threw him off balance and off the tower. He shielded his body with chakra, but he still landed unceremoniously on his back, raising a lot of dust. The orange-haired girl who was waiting for him on the ground winced at his loud impacting of the ground.

"… You okay, niichan?" The girl said after the dust cleared, kneeling down beside him and poking him with her right index finger.

"My spine's hurting, but I will get better. Ouch." He slowly got back into a sitting position, rubbing the sore spot. "Good morning, Moegi-chan. Isn't the clock just awesome?!"

"Yes, it is." Moegi smiled, chuckling at her older brother figure's antics. That was when Naruto noticed that she was holding something behind her back. "Happy birthday!" Naruto blinked as something was shoved in his face for the second time in two days. It was a small plant, with a lot of bright red leaves. Naruto gently took it in his own hands, afraid to let it drop and break it. "It's an Amarilla! They're almost impossible to grow, you know!"

"And yet you managed, Moegi-chan." He got up back on his feet, feeling proud of the little girl in front of him. He once had a hobby of gardening, but the girl was studying to become a botanist.

"Eheheh… It was my graduation work at the academy." To graduate from the academy, every person had to pass both the ninja test, demonstrating that he could take care of him/herself in that aspect, and present a successful assignment regarding the career choice. Naruto had built a new building for the academy in a week, giving the facility a new gym. "I modified it so that you have to water it just once a day, and so that there are no side effects."

"Side effects? To what, Moegi-chan?" That made Naruto blink. The girl grinned.

"The Amarilla is a drug, niichan. Like a soldier pill, only more powerful, with nasty side-effects, and it's very very rare." The new information made Naruto pale, earning a chuckle from the young girl. "But as I said, I modified it! You just have to eat a leaf or inhale the dust ground out of one. The effect lasts ten minutes. Isn't it great?!"

"... Yeah." Naruto smiled, recovering quick enough. He rubbed the girl's head with one of his hands, pride swelling up in his chest. _'You're growing up to be something great too.'_ "It's lovely, Moegi-chan."

"I knew you'd like it!" Moegi threw herself at Naruto and latched her arms around his neck, planting a big wet kiss on his left cheek. "Gotta go, now. Bye, niichan!" She waltzed away, a big grin on her face as she waved back at him. Naruto got back on his feet and sighed, remembering the first days after the attack. A young girl who could do nothing but cry and despair.

And who could blame her? Four years old. She had seen her parents skewered by falling debris, her older sister barely surviving a wild Katon attack. It had taken the older girl one year just to get out of the coma. According to Iruka-sensei, Moegi was the youngest case of PTSD he had ever seen.

_'And now she experiments on addictive substances with a smile on her face.'_ Once you chose a career in the academy, you got assigned to an adult mentor. Naruto wondered if Moegi had been started upon the extremist path of a botanist by her mentor or she found the road on her own. Either way, he was grateful. Ever since she started the academy, he had seen her smile in situations that were other than when he was with him or her sister. Focusing on her work had let her put bad memories behind her.

"Moegi-chan seems to have a knack for experimenting with those kinds of plants." Naruto blinked, recognizing the voice. He turned around and basically hugged air with one arm because the man moved out of the way just in time. "Sorry, I'm carrying something."

"Eheheh, you've gotten really good, Iruka-sensei." Naruto grinned and turned in the right direction. He found Iruka, carrying something with him. A large package wrapped in colored paper. Naruto's grin increased two-fold. "Don't tell me, it's for me."

"Hey, it's not every day that a kid makes it to sixteen years old, right, Naruto?" The brown haired man handed the package to Naruto, who understood the need of the move out of the way thing. It was really heavy. He carefully and slowly opened his arms wide, managing to awkwardly hug his father figure while holding both a drug plant and a heavy package, one in each hand. "So, I see you've finished the clock tower."

"Yep! Ain't she a beaut?" Naruto butchered some kind of accent, much to the older man's chagrin. The two began to walk in the direction of Naruto's apartment. "How have you been doing, Iruka-sensei? How's the academy?"

"Good. The new students seem very eager. One was very impressed by your 'twins'." That earned a snicker from Naruto. He always took pride in showing off his Kage Bunshin. "I guess this situation changed at least your life for the better, huh?"

"Well, they don't look at me like I'm a hell-spawn anymore. I just became another citizen." Naruto commented with a shrug of his shoulders.

"When you have so many dead ones to bury and a village to rebuild, you tend to think twice about everyone else around you, especially if someone becomes the most productive carpenter in the village" They reached Naruto's apartment complex and started climbing the stairs.

"Well, you changed a lot as well, Iruka-sensei." Naruto interjected, deciding to spread a bit of the praise. "You and all the other ninjas trained so much…"

"Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised to be a notch above most of the Jounin who were here back in the day." Even if Iruka acted modest, Naruto knew that it wasn't an exaggeration. After the departure or death of most of the Leaf's shinobi force, the ninjas who decided to stay behind had a lot on their shoulders. Almost everyone who stayed was either Genin or Chunin rank. They began to train like mad to increase their own skills and re-organized the academy with the new double program. Iruka spearheaded the latter.

The academy teacher's appearance had changed, too. He packed a lot more muscles than before and another scar now donned his face, going from right under his left ear to the underside of his jaw.

"If we ever feel the need to create some kind of seat like the Hokage was, you'll probably be the favourite candidate!" Naruto said with a grin as they walked up the last set of stairs. Iruka chuckled.

"Actually, if it was about popularity, you'd probably have more chances than me." Naruto blinked at that comment, turning to Iruka with a confused look on his face.

"What are you talking about?" Iruka answered by pointing behind his head, at his door. Naruto followed the finger to stare at a pile of wrapped packages and letters in front of his door, becoming a cue for his mouth to open in surprise. His old teacher laughed out loud at his face.

"Naruto, one doesn't rebuild an entire city without getting some credit for it from its people." He put an arm around the stunned youngster's shoulders, who was still staring incredulous at the pile of presents in front of his door. "You've proven yourself enough, Naruto. Konoha has always been like a big family, and you've become one of the most important members. You've given them their house back. Did you really think that wasn't going to matter to them?"

"… I guess you're right." Naruto stared at the presents in front of his door for a few more seconds before a small, genuine smile came to his lips. If anyone asked, he would deny the tears in the corners of his eyes all the way to his grave.

-FutureLost-

_'Maybe it's a bit too fancy?'_ TenTen kept on observing herself in the mirror, checking her dress, her hair, her face. She had spent hours preparing the dinner she and Naruto were going to eat, then cleaning the house -and herself- and finally choosing a dress. And still she was unsure about her choice. _'I mean, what if I weird him out or something? He's not really used to me looking-' _A playful pattern of knocks on her front door. She froze and then adjusted her clothes and hair one last time. "... Showtime, girl."

-FutureLost-

_'It's the first time Ten-chan ever asked me to come over.'_ Naruto was standing in front of his friend's door, with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, dressed pretty nicely compared to his usual choice of attire. His best pair or pants and his best tee. He really didn't understand what Iruka had gotten all up in a fuss about when he had told him about the invitation. First, he had literally kicked him in the shower, then he told him to pick his best clothes and then he had only finally let him go when he had acquired some flowers. As he was mulling about the reason for the flowers, since it was _his_ birthday, the door opened. "Ah, Ten-chan! Finally d… De…"

"Hi, Naruto." Naruto's brain had gone into shutdown, because the newly received data didn't compute with the one he had previously stored. He couldn't recognize the girl in front of him as TenTen. TenTen was a tomboy who worked in a forge. TenTen wore old baggy pants and ragged t-shirts to avoid getting anything of worth dirty while she worked or trained. TenTen was his best friend who always threw pointy things at him whenever he made a dumb joke.

TenTen didn't wear make-up or jewellery. TenTen didn't wear chinese-styled red dresses with gold trims open on one side to leave in sight one of her legs and seemed to fit maybe a bit too tight on her chest. TenTen's lips never were that red. "Ah… Those…"

"… Eh? A-Ah!" TenTen noticed the flowers. That broke him out of his paralysis. He blushed profusely and instinctively handed them to her. The girl gently took them from his hands with a smile, then moved to the side.

"Please, come in." Naruto slowly, very slowly obeyed walked inside the apartment, the girl closing the door behind him, while in her head a little reproduction of herself did a victory dance. _'Yes! Yes! Yes! He was paralyzed! Stunned! And the roses…! He's not that dense, then?!'_

God bless father figures.

-FutureLost-

_'Eight o'clock…'_ Iruka glanced in the direction of his office's clock, and his mind immediately travelled to Naruto. When he had heard from the boy about TenTen's invite, he almost had an hearth attack. The girl had finally decided to take some action before another one of Naruto's growing crowd of fans did. And of course Naruto was completely oblivious to everything, and was going to go to her house in the same clothes he had worn all day, maybe without even taking a shower. Not that he could really blame him for his lack of awareness. His generation's children hadn't exactly grown up properly, and Naruto was also an orphan. Who was he supposed to learn about those kind of things from? He would have liked to, of course, but-The teacher's eyes widened. "Oh, no! I didn't give him **_protection!_**"

"Iruka, please. If the girl really knows Naruto, she will have that covered. Also, don't you think that's a bit too forward thinking for a first date?" The silver-haired man standing on the other side of the room said, chuckling at Iruka's expenses. He settled down the last of the files they've been adjourning into their rightful places and turned to the brown-haired teacher, who was sighing in exasperation. "Honestly, you're going to pop one, sooner or later."

"… Geez, Mizuki, always the one to calm me down, right?" Iruka plopped down in his chair again, earning yet another laugh from his colleague.

"Always." Mizuki closed the locker in which they stored the files in and then applied a sealing technique. "How are the latest reports?"

"The reconstruction is over. Naruto has worked so hard in the last four years that he did three times the work we had done in the previous four. It also allowed most of the others who had been assigned to that work to be relocated elsewhere. Now we don't know what we will do with all the empty space. We lack the villagers to put in the houses." Iruka said, grinning in a very Narutoish way. "I thank Kami for the day he decided to learn the technique from the scroll."

"Better not tell him that, Iruka." Mizuki moved slowly his head in the direction of the heavily protected closet where they had stuffed the forbidden scroll after Naruto's escapade. "… The things we could do with the techniques written on that scroll."

"But they were forbidden for a reason. Only the Hokage knew all the risks and implications of every technique on that scroll." Iruka said, stuffing some leftover papers inside the drawer of his desk. "I don't think we will ever use a technique other than the Kage Bunshin from that scroll, Mizuki. It was the first on it because it was the least dangerous."

"And I guess that's why you took it upon yourself to experiment each technique and make a renewed version of the scroll with explanations of every quirk and drawback, right?" Iruka went stiff, almost dropping the pen he was holding because of it. Mizuki just offered him an approving smile. "I don't question your reasons, Iruka. Naruto was right, the scroll's knowledge could help us in many ways, and I find it commendable that you're doing it alone at your own risk."

"… Not a word to anyone, Mizuki. Not until the time is right." Mizuki nodded and went back to stuffing folders inside a closet.

"You finished your work, right?" Iruka nodded.

"Just last week. It took four years but I finally analyzed every technique in the scroll… Except for the last one, of course." Mizuki nodded, knowing what Iruka was referring to. The technique that ended the Kyuubi's rampage. The brown haired man suddenly snorted in laughter. "We could say that the old version of the scroll is now obsolete."

"Then, you wouldn't mind if I took it, right?" Iruka went stiff. Again.

-FutureLost-

"Damn, the dinner was… I mean…"

"Better than the usual boxed lunch?" Naruto nodded dumbly, not knowing how else to reply with his stomach that full. That earned a chuckle from TenTen who, Naruto noticed, that evening seemed a tad different from the usual. They were now sitting on her couch after putting away all the dishes, Naruto holding his belly comically and the girl sitting a meter away from him. "I put a lot of effort into it."

"All for my birthday… Thanks, Ten-chan." Naruto turned around with his usual grin. "You're my best friend."

_'ARGH! Stop saying that!'_ "A-Am I, now?" TenTen said, her smile now a bit forced. When Naruto had appeared on her front door dressed up and with flowers in hand, she thought she had finally gotten through that thick head of his. Well, it wasn't really his fault. Lack of present parental figures, and it wasn't like she had actually done _anything_ to get her feelings across up to that evening.

"You've been the only constant in my life in these last eight years. Iruka-sensei had his work to do, and Moegi had her older sister, so... Heh, hey. Now that I think about it, that's probably it." He gave her one of his big, toothy grins. "You're like a big sister to me."

_'UHK!'_ It was like a sword had stabbed her gut. The phantom pain was there. She breathed in and out to calm herself down. _'Baby steps, TenTen. Baby steps.'_ Reminding herself that she was going to have to hold his hand through it all, she settled down. "N-Naruto, that's all you've ever thought of me as?"

"Huh? Well... Yes." Naruto continued, confused. "Hmm, maybe more like a cousin than a big sister. We don't look exactly alike."

_'Slightly better.'_ At least cousins could legally be in a relationship. "That's it?"

"I think you're too young to be my mother!" He joked, and TenTen resisted the urge to strangle him where he stood. Barely.

-FutureLost-

"Mizuki, what are you saying?" Iruka said with a low tone of voice. The silver haired man sighed and turned around.

"Iruka, I want to be frank with you. You've always been a good friend, and in these past years I've appreciated what that means even more." Mizuki said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I'm leaving, Iruka. I'm leaving the village."

"… The Senju? Or the Uchiha?" Iruka guessed that Mizuki could have contracted an 'extraction' only from one of those factions, being the only ones who were active in Fire Country in those days. The other countries preferred to leave them to their own struggles and inner fighting. After all, since there wasn't a true Konohagakure any more, all the missions that they originally took care of were taken upon by the other villages. Leaving a whole country to its inner civil war suited the other hidden villages just fine, alliances be damned.

"The Senju. They want the forbidden scroll back, though. They thought it got destroyed in the battle." Mizuki continued, as Iruka sighed heavily, staring at his now joined hands.

"Why?" Time for the hard questions, but Mizuki had prepared for them.

"Tsubaki." Iruka's eyes widened. "She's still alive. She's with the Senju." Mizuki lowered his head, not daring to look at Iruka. "She's not the only reason, though… I'm tired, Iruka. Really tired. Tired of having to fear for my life, to be afraid of the future, that sooner or later one of the two factions decides that they would like to come back here and lay waste to everything we have and worked hard to build… Again." The silver-haired teacher gripped his hands together tightly.

"… I understand your reasons." Then a small smile came to Iruka's lips. "And I thank you for waiting till I completed the copy."

"I learned loyalty, Iruka, by struggling to survive and rebuild, and I learned friendship. I would never do anything to injure you or the rest of the village, and now I have the occasion to see Tsubaki again without having to do anything of the sort." Mizuki uncrossed his arms and held them perpendicular to his sides. Then he bowed, deeply. "So I beg you, Iruka, please give me the original version of the forbidden scroll."

"… Damn, you planned everything to every last detail." Iruka snorted as he got up from his chair. "You played a lot on pity, knowing that if you just tried to take it I would kick your ass."

"That is a given, Iruka." The brown haired man did a sequence of handseals and put his hands on the closet behind his chair, which shone with azure light for the briefest of seconds. He then opened it, picked up a large scroll and threw it at Mizuki, who caught it with a smile. "You don't practice and learn every technique in this scroll without getting stronger."

"Yeah." Iruka re-sealed the cupboard and turned to Mizuki again. He walked up to him and wrapping the man in a tight hug, which the fellow teacher returned. "Good luck out there, Mizuki."

"Good luck to you too, Iruka."

-FutureLost-

After a round of laughter, Naruto at least realized that there was something bothering his friend. "Ten-chan, what's wrong? You're acting weird."

"... I'm acting weird, huh?" Dense as a wall of bricks. But it was her fault. Naruto wasn't one for catching subtle hints. At least when it came to girls. He had never seen him interested in the topic, to tell the truth. What kind of teen grows up without even a crush on his resumé? _'Alright. Screw subtlety.'_ "Well, just wait till you see this, then."

"Huh? What did you s-WAH!" Naruto lost his balance and fell on his back on the couch as TenTen pushed him on his back and then proceeded to crawl upon him until they were eye to eye. "T-Ten-chan?"

"S-Shut up." She let out, swallowing and matching Naruto's embarrassed flush with one of her own. She stared deep into his eyes. And stared. And stared.

And stared.

_'W-W-What now?! How do I do this?!'_ In a hurry to make her claim on Naruto, TenTen had forgotten something about herself. If she wasn't as virgin in thought about things romantic like Naruto, she was as inexperienced as he was. Yes. Aoyama TenTen, at the age of seventeen, hadn't even ever kissed a boy and she had no idea how to initiate contact at that moment.

"... Ten-chan, are you okay?" Naruto was quickly recovering from his embarrassment, even if he could hear the girl's heart beating through her chest. Doki. Doki. Doki. Tap… Tap? _'Wait a minute.'_

"H-Hey!" Naruto almost dropped her off the couch in the hurry he was to get to the window. He put his head outside, and observed as a silhouette continued on its merry way after having jumped off the roof of TenTen's apartment. "N-Naruto? What's wrong?"

"… A ninja?" Naruto couldn't recognize the person because his hair was covered, and he narrowed his eyes. There wasn't much reason for anyone from Konoha to be going out at night in traditional shinobi garb, carrying a scroll on his back, so… "... An infiltrator. They're back at last, hm?"

TenTen pouted, adjusting her dress. A completely wasted chance. And now that Naruto had gotten distracted by something... Although, if he _really_ had seen a ninja, it had to be investigated. "... I'll get suited up and be right behind you."

"On it, Ten-chan." Naruto nodded and then disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a stray leaf in his place.

-FutureLost-

Mizuki had reached the outskirts of the village. He jumped over the towering divisory wall and headed directly into the surrounding forest. He found the meeting spot quite easily. A clearing with a little lake, barely lit by the moonlight because of the many tree branches hovering above him. _'I just have to wait, I guess.'_

"Mizuki." He almost had a heart attack and thrown a barrel of shuriken in the direction of the voice, before realizing that whoever had just talked would have wanted him dead, he would already be. He slowly turned around, taking in the appearance of his 'extraction team'. A single man, but one he couldn't possibly _not_ recognize. "You're late."

"It took longer than I thought to retrieve the scroll without making anyone the wiser." '_Kakashi of the Sharingan… They sent such a legend to retrieve me and the scroll?'_ Mizuki had personally met the man standing in front of him only a couple of times, but those dark silver hair were unmistakable. The Jounin had dropped the standard attire for Konoha ninjas of that rank, and the glimpses of white armor he could catch were covered by a black cloak, which had its hood dropped, unveiling his head and a Dog Mask with just one eye.

"May I see it? I need to verify its originality." Mizuki nodded and handed the scroll to the man, who took it and checked its state before opening it. He checked the first few techniques and the calligraphy. "It's the real one." He closed it and tied it onto his back, under his cloak.

"That's what I said. It's the true original forbidden scroll." Mizuki said, and then he suddenly tensed when he felt Kakashi's suddenly inquisitive gaze on him, even through the mask. "W-What is it?"

"Do I have to assume that someone has made a copy of the scroll?" Mizuki tried his best to hide his tension and surprise at how easily the Jounin had read his thoughts, but his silence just made him guilty as charged. He internally cursed. "Where is it kept?"

"W-Why do you want the copy as well? You just said 'bring the Forbidden scroll'!" Mizuki answered, suddenly nervous and not very comfortable with standing in front of Kakashi. The Jounin found no obligation to answer him, but maybe he could still salvage the deal.

It would be a hassle having to get the location of the copy out of him with violent means.

"The retrieval of the scroll was an important mission for two reasons. First, because the techniques contained inside this scroll can be useful to our cause. The Hokage is growing old, and with him his memory and power." Kakashi lowered his head in an apologetic gesture as he spoke those words. Just for an instant. "Second, because you've proven that the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi has access to the scroll." Mizuki's eyes widened. "We cannot take the risk of him reading about the sealing technique and its way to be dispelled."

"Naruto would never do something like that!" Mizuki exploded, his rage getting the better of him. Naruto endangering the village? The boy had proven himself a thousand times over in his eyes, he knew. He'd rather die than even entertain those kind of thoughts!"He doesn't even know about the Kyuubi being sealed inside of him!"

"We're not willing to take any chances, Mizuki. _Where_ is the copy kept?" Kakashi said, a hard voice that foretold nothing good. Mizuki surprisingly managed to keep his cool.

"… I don't know." He replied, truthfully. Iruka kept the two scrolls in separate places, and while he had managed to see him training with the techniques and inscribing them in the new scroll, he had never seen where he kept it hidden.

"But you know who knows, right?" Mizuki didn't reply. He had already asked much of Iruka, he wasn't going to betray his trust. "I see. I guess this means that the deal is off." Mizuki tensed and his right hand twitched as it slowly moved towards his right tight, where his weapon pouch was tied. He had seen Kakashi's cloak shuffle. He had grabbed a weapon. "I will have to make you confess the hard way, then."

-FutureLost-

In the aftermath of the battle, the remains of the Hokage Tower had been scanned for anything salvageable. Other than the forbidden scroll, Iruka possessed another object that had been in the Sandaime Hokage's possession. Thanks to that object Iruka had been able to follow Mizuki as he made his way through the village and met with his Senju contact, and he had been able to witness just how the meeting had gone straight to hell. "… You've learned loyalty, Mizuki. You really did."

-FutureLost-

"The only reason I accepted this deal was because you guaranteed no further harm would come to the village." Mizuki had extracted a kunai, holding it in front of him. He kept his eyes on his opponent. He had gotten a lot stronger during those eight years. He could take a Jounin. _'Tsubaki, I'm sorry.'_ "I will not let you do anything else! Not after we've finally rebuilt!"

"You're not going to be able to do anything about it, Mizuki." Before the long-haired man could retort, a crack echoed from beneath him, and a pair of hands grabbed around his ankles. Then he got pulled down, embedding his body into the ground to the waist. He managed to avoid getting pulled down completely by using chakra to reject the grip of the two hands on his ankles, but before he could do anything else Kakashi had run to him and grabbed both his arms, holding both of them above his head and behind him. Mizuki winced in pain as Kakashi stretched his arms to their maximum extension and maybe a bit more. "Answer me. Who keeps the copy of the scroll?"

"I won't tell you anyt-_AAAAAAAAAARGH!_" Mizuki cried out in pain as Kakashi popped his arms out of the shoulder-blades, letting them then go.

"In a battle against ninjas, if you can take out your opponent's arms you cut off two thirds of his battle potential." Kakashi slowly walked around Mizuki so that he could kneel down in front of him, as the silver haired man kept on twitching and gritting his teeth, not allowing himself another cry of pain. Kakashi grabbed him by his hair and held his head raised up. With the other hand, he removed his mask, revealing another cloth one that covered up to the bridge of his nose and a blazing Sharingan eye. "I will ask you again. Who keeps the copy of the forbidden scroll?"

Mizuki spat in Kakashi's face, blaming his own foolishness for ever trusting someone who put waste to their own village with such ease. "Go to hell."

"… It seems I will need to do this the hard way, th-" Kakashi didn't get to finish the sentence as several sharp objects pierced through him. The Jounin disappeared in a cloud of smoke. The barrel of Shuriken had ended up stabbing a wooden log. Mizuki was relieved that the hand gripping his hair was gone, and then noticed who had come to his rescue as they landed in front of him.

"N-Naruto… TenTen." The blonde didn't wait for another word and pulled the silver haired man out of the hole by his shoulders while the young girl kept an eye on their surroundings, more weapons at the ready.

"Mizuki-sensei..." Mizuki raised his head to meet the smiling face of Naruto. "Thanks."

"T-Thanks? For w-!" The silver haired man paled, his eyes going wide. "Naruto, since when-"

"Since you said that I would never do something 'like that'." Mizuki cursed, lowering his head again just as Naruto finished pulling him out. "Hey, now! Don't be like that!" The older man raised his face again. Naruto was grinning. "I already knew."

"... You already knew?!" Mizuki's inquiry was met with boisterous laughter.

"Mizuki-sensei, maybe as I kid I could have overlooked it, but how the hell was I supposed to miss a seal that appears on my navel every single time I mould chakra?!" Naruto continued laughing, like he was telling a joke. Mizuki's gaze went to TenTen, but the girl was keeping guard, not reacting in the slightest. "Oh, don't worry about Ten-chan. She knows too."

"She-!" Mizuki opened his mouth to say something. He came up with nothing. "This... Whatever! This is not the time! We can talk about this later!" He stood just as Kakashi's silhouette emerged from the ground, a few meters in front of TenTen.

"... So you know about the Kyuubi."

"Yes, I know about **_Kurama_**, you Senju bastard." Kakashi raised an eyebrow. Kurama? What the hell was he talking about? "So you're here for the forbidden scroll, huh? Well, too bad! We'll be taking it back, now!" Naruto punched his left palm, his face morphing into an angry frown. "The only thing you'll get is _your ass kicked_."

"Just two poorly trained teens against a seasoned war veteran?" Kakashi deadpanned, earning a glare from Naruto.

"TenTen, give me a hand with my arms, please." The girl slowly turned to the silver haired man, and nodded. "ARGH!" Two screams of pain later, Mizuki's arms were back into place. "... Thanks."

"Now it's three on one, Sharingan-san." _'How does a member of the Senju possess the Sharingan?'_ TenTen mused, knowing that even with Naruto and Mizuki-sensei it wasn't going to be an easy battle. Also, this was the first time in her whole life she was going to be using her techniques outside of sparring. The thought made her nervous.

"Still doesn't change anything." Kakashi deadpanned, taking a single step forward. "And need I remind you... I only need Mizuki alive."

"And need I to remind you..." Mizuki breathed deeply in and out, banishing the left-over pain. Then, he raised his hands and started going through hand-seals. "That we don't care if you live or die **_at all!_**" TenTen and Naruto jumped to opposite sides, left and right of Mizuki, as the teacher drew in breath. **"Ninpo! Enmaku no Jutsu!"**(1) When he opened his mouth again not air but a thick cloud of smoke got out, filling the clearing and hiding everything from Kakashi's sight.

_'A high-level smoke-screen. He's better than I thought.'_ Kakashi stepped back and then immediately ducked, dodging two kunai flying his way, coming from different directions. _'They know that a Sharingan's user POV is the same as any regular person. They're strangely prepared.'_ Kakashi took several steps back, dodging a volley of Shuriken that embedded themselves into the ground where he had been standing. His right ear twitched, having caught a sound. _'Good thing I don't rely on sight only like the average Uchiha.'_ Kakashi launched himself in the direction of the sound, finding a startled Naruto who narrowly blocked a stab at his mid-section with his hands grabbing on Kakashi's own one but he could do nothing to avoid the elbow to the face which sent him rolling on the ground... And then disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

_'Kage Bunshin. I didn't notice when he used it.'_ Kakashi observed as three Naruto suddenly came out of the smoke and rushed him from different angles. Pivoting on himself, Kakashi back-handed one hard in the face and then threw one of his legs backward for a mule kick, dispelling the first two. The third he met in close combat, kunai on kunai. "Your timing needs work."

"Mind your own business. You Senju are good at doing that." Naruto retorted, pushing forward with his kunai. "Destroying the village without even evacuating the civilians. Kudos for the surprise factor, but what kind of rotten bastard does that?"

"... You don't know the reason why the Hokage made that decision." Kakashi's eyes narrowed and suddenly gave in, making Naruto lose balance for a split second, which was all the Jounin needed to kick him under the jaw and send him sprawling to the ground. "And you never will. So, don't you _dare_ judge him."

"I'll do... What I want." Naruto spat out as he got back on his feet, while Kakashi bent his body to avoid more projectile weapons. "You lost the right to order us around when you disappeared. Not that we would have let you do so, after that day."

"… True." The Senju faction had foreseen that, had they remained in Konoha after having sparked the battle, they would have had a civilian riot on their hands on top of the civil war. A distraction that they couldn't allow themselves to entertain.

"Ninpou!" Kakashi raised his head, taking in Mizuki's appearance, his hands going through his last handseal. "**Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"**(2)

Kakashi's eyes widened. _'This is... Slightly bad.'_ The amount of chakra Mizuki had just put into the technique didn't bode well. The Jounin found himself weaving and dodging to the best of his abilities to avoid a shower of steel.

"Ninpou!" Only to have to renew his efforts. "Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Only for a little part of his brain to tell him that he had to go beyond that. If Mizuki's was a shower, Naruto's variation of the technique was a downpour. Kakashi had no choice but jump to dodge the hundreds of sharp weapons, exposing himself to another two projectile attacks from TenTen, one of which nicked him in the arm.

"Raaah!" And then to Mizuki's follow up attack. A brief exchange of Taijutsu later, Kakashi was forcefully hurled towards the ground. The Jounin rolled with the forced and diminished the damage. The smoke was clearing.

As it did, Kakashi wondered why the girl -a weapon specialist, from the looks of it- had never bothered to learn the technique, if it was available to a person she seemed intimate with like Naruto.

Various puffs of smoke made him realize that she probably knew but hadn't used it because she couldn't. It wasn't kunai she had been shooting._"Ninpou! Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"_ The chorus of similar voices was the prelude to an avalanche of steel.

"Gotcha!" Naruto cheered as he watched the thousands of weapons drop on Kakashi from every direction. He immediately dispelled his copies along with all their weapons, revealing a hole in the ground. "Feh. Should have known."

"We must have hit him, though. He had less than a second to get away from that onslaught." _'No matter how many times I see it, I always remain shocked by how much chakra Naruto has. Using that combination of Henge, Kage Bunshin and Shuriken Kage Bunshin with that potency would have emptied me.'_ Mizuki looked around, weapon at the ready as he prepared for Kakashi to appear again.

"Ah!" Only for a cry to echo from the foliage, from the direction TenTen had been hiding into. Naruto gasped.

"Ten-chan!" _'How the hell?! She was hiding around-'_

"She was sniping at me from a distance of more than five hundred meters? Impressive." Naruto growled as Kakashi appeared from the ground behind him and in a puff of smoke on the other side of the clearing, holding a captive TenTen in front of him with a kunai to the neck. "But, you're not the only one who can use Kage Bunshin, Naruto."

"Leave her alone, you bastard!" Naruto roared, unsure upon which one of the two Kakashi to unleash his irritation.

"You're not in a position to make any requests." The original Kakashi stated, while his copy tightened his hold on the young kunoichi. "I'll ask again. Who keeps the scroll?"

"Don't move." Kakashi didn't have time to react, nor could he. It seemed like his body had suddenly lost the ability to move on his own for a few seconds after feeling something like a light electrical current going through his spine. "If you move, you die. If you try and harm TenTen further, you die. If you do anything aside from what I tell you to do, you die."

"… Who are you?" _'What's wrong with my chakra?'_ Kakashi didn't risk do anything to defy the will of his attacker, because he felt his chakra coils in turmoil. Foreign chakra had been injected into his body, and after reaching a certain disposition, it had stopped moving.

"Turn around slowly." The man ignored Kakashi's question and gave him an order. Kakashi obeyed while he focused on the man's voice, that sounded somewhat familiar, and he found himself face to face with an angry Umino Iruka, his right arm stretched and his right hand open wide. "Hatake Kakashi."

"Iruka… It's been a long time." Kakashi said, while he focused his senses on the chakra he felt coming from his opponent, and he could immediately understand that the man in front of him was no longer a simple Chunin teacher. "You seem to have gotten stronger."

"You don't experiment, refine and memorize all the techniques in the forbidden scroll without gaining something out of it, Hatake." At those words, Kakashi's visible eye widened. It was an imperceptible change for everyone but Iruka. "Yes. Experiment, refine and memorize. Every and each one of them… Except for _that_ one, of course."

"… You…" Iruka was letting his chakra flare grow bigger and bigger by the second, and Kakashi understood just what kind of level the man had reached in eight years.

"This is one of the techniques I learned. It lets you form little bombs of chakra in the opponent's circulatory system, in the proximity of important points of your nervous system. It was forbidden because there was a high risk of feed-back, but as I said I refined every technique in the scroll." Kakashi focused his Sharingan eye and noticed threads of chakra coming out of Iruka's fingers, extending and then entering his body from points on his back, he guessed. "Right now, I have the biggest one in the proximity of your spine."

"You seem to forget I still have a hostage." Kakashi said, and Iruka chuckled.

"TenTen?" The scarred Chunin glanced in the direction of Kakashi's copy, who was still restraining the young girl... Only to suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke. As the memories of the copy came back to him, Kakashi's eyes widened.

"Sorry about that, guys. I guess I should have hidden further away." TenTen said as she interrupted the flow of chakra to the strings that tied her buns into place, which had suddenly extended and hardened, shooting into the copy's brain from under his jaw.

"... Impressive." That wasn't a mocking. Naruto he could accept, because of his heritage. Mizuki and Iruka had already been Chunin at the time of the Battle of Konoha. If unexpected, their growth wasn't surprising. But for a girl from a civilian family to become so skilled and resourceful? And then there was their teamwork, their coordination. _'This is bad. I will have to use Kamui to-'_

"As I said, I could kill you easily, but I will let you go." That declaration surprised the Jounin, who focused on Iruka again. "Eight years ago, you destroyed the village and in doing so renounced all your ties to it. Now the true children of the leaf are strong enough to make this statement." Iruka's voice turned venomous, and Kakashi felt the full dimension of the man's chakra. "The Senju and the Uchiha are no longer welcome here. We won't pursue you, but leave us alone or we will defend ourselves. Am I clear, Hatake?"

"… Crystal." Kakashi replied, as he felt a person shift beside him.

"Good. Now, I will not harm you, but…" Iruka dispelled the technique, and Kakashi was ready to disappear before an enormous gathering of chakra right behind his back startled him. He turned around in a flash, but he was too slow. "There's someone who's build up quite a lot of anger and stress in eight years, here. I can't deny him a bit of relief."

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

_'Shit…!'_ Kakashi had never seen someone gather so much chakra into one arm. He knew the Akimichi could do something similar, but… The blonde hit him from below with an incredibly strong right hook that got him at the hip, and had sent him flying through the sky in the opposite direction from Konoha. _'I wasn't fast enough… Six ribs are gone.'_

"… Ahhh!" Naruto watched the Jounin fly away in the exact direction he had wanted to send him, and then he let out a roar to the sky. "That felt great!" Naruto said, then rotating his right arm to stretch it, only wincing as he realized that pumping all that chakra into his muscles with his less than perfect control had done a real number on them. "Ow. I wonder where he will land…"

-FutureLost-

_'This is gonna be close.'_ Kakashi was descending to the ground and building up velocity, even if he was trying to slow himself down with a thick layer of chakra wrapped around his body. Fortunately, he recognized the meeting point with his team. He took out a whistle and blew it loudly. Four black shapes shot out of the foliage, two of them crossing each other before separating, revealing a net that they stretched the more they moved away from each other. Kakashi turned to land on his unhurt side, and he managed to do so. "… Good job."

"Captain, what happened?!" The medic of the group was immediately by his side, noticing that there was something wrong with his posture as their two team-mates let him down from the net.

"I was met with resistance. I managed to retrieve the scroll, but…" _'I have to report this to Hokage-sama as soon as possible.'_

-FutureLost-

"You sure you're alright?"

"Yes, thanks. It was just that scratch on my neck." TenTen did her best to tranquilize the doctor. She was a retired medic ninja who had worked at the hospital before the civil war and had made one hell of a career. She was now the head surgeon of the rebuilt Konoha Hospital, and currently fussing over TenTen's injury.

"Hmm... Then we're done." The older woman said, letting the forger get back on her feet.

"Thank you, Ayeka-san." TenTen bowed her head as she left the room. It was probably the first time in years someone healed a injury from a real shinobi fight in Konoha.

"It was just a scratch, right?" As soon as she was out of the room, she was met with another overbearing person. She rolled her eyes and leaned her forehead against his own one.

"Yes, Naruto. It was just a scratch. My only regret is that I didn't see that asshole's face as hair-strings stabbed through his brain." She grinned as she said that, earning an 'Eeeeew' from Naruto. "How's Mizuki-sensei?"

"They popped them out and then into place again. You wouldn't believe the pain." TenTen and Naruto turned to their right to witness Iruka and Mizuki approaching them. "I'll need to make them rest and be back in a few days for a check-up, but I should be back to 100% soon." The silver-haired Chuunin said, flexing his fingers in front of his face. "... Hatake Kakashi. Can't say I ever thought I'd be facing a living legend and live to talk about it."

"Some living legend! We kicked his ass, and-Ah! The Scroll! He got away with it, and-" Naruto suddenly narrowed his eyes and with two steps was in his father figure's face. "Wait, what was that thing about trying, refining and memorizing?"

Iruka sighed, knowing this would come as soon as Naruto calmed down. "Well... One's got to have a hobby."

"And you were chewing me out because I only learned the Kage Bunshin?!" Naruto turned around pouting and kicked the ground. "... Can I learn another technique from the scroll?"

"No." Naruto's posture slumped. "Just go back home, the both of you. This has been a long night, and there's probably going to be half of Konoha looking for you to know the details of the battle, tomorrow." The nose-scarred teacher then started pushing Mizuki forward with one hand. "Have a good night, and don't stay up too late!"

"Don't stay up too..."

"Late?"

TenTen got the meaning of those words immediately and blushed. Naruto just scratched the top of his head with a confused look on his face. "What would we be staying up late for?"

"N-Nevermind." _'Stupid thick-headed blonde.'_ The kunoichi pouted, before deciding that she was entitled to at least a hint of romanticism after fighting to the death with a Senju Jounin. She took Naruto's left arm and hooked it around her right one, much to his surprise. "... Walk me home."

"Ehm, okay?" Naruto replied, flushing a little because TenTen was unintentionally pushing his arm against the side of her chest.

Unintentionally.

-FutureLost-

The walk from the hospital had been filled with nothing but silence for the two Chunin. Something was weighting heavily on Mizuki's mind, and Iruka had respected his privacy... Until he was sure they were alone in the streets. "Are you alright, Mizuki?"

"... Does it show so much how miserable I am?" The teacher conceded, lowering his head. "I gave up everything for a chance to meet Tsubaki again... And now I have nothing."

"True. You were about to throw away what you built in this village, leave and side yourself with the people who destroyed it and left it to succumb in the first place... Tough position. We don't have death penalty, but exile would seem fitting." Iruka stroked his chin in a thoughtful position. "Good thing we didn't tell anyone anything."

"We won't?" Mizuki raised his head in a flash, staring confused at Iruka.

"I won't if you won't. I didn't tell Naruto or TenTen either, did I?" The brown-haired shinobi just winked at the confused Mizuki.

"But... Why?" Mizuki whispered out. Iruka just squeezed his shoulder and smiled.

"No one got hurt but you, and I can't blame you for your intentions. Also, I think you're suffering enough knowing that you're probably never going to see Tsubaki again." Mizuki cringed at the low blow from Iruka. He guessed that was his way of punishing him. "No point adding salt to the wound."

Mizuki sighed, moving a hand through his hair, getting it out of his face. Then another subject came to his mind that he had to discuss with Iruka. "... Iruka, Naruto knows about the Kyuubi."

"I heard. I was watching the first part of the fight. See how you fared." Iruka hadn't known either. It seemed like the only person Naruto had confided into was TenTen. "It's weird that he didn't come to me."

"Also, I think he and the bijuu are on a first-name basis." That caused Iruka to halt his step. Mizuki turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "I don't know anyone in Konoha who's named Kurama. Do you?"

"... No, I don't." _'Naruto is on a first name basis with a bijuu.'_ Iruka thought about it for a few seconds. Then, he burst out laughing. "This is... Ahahahah! Only Naruto could-Ahahahah!"

"Yes, I guess if anyone could ever do something that weird, it would be him." Still, Mizuki couldn't help but wonder how the hell that happened in the first place.

-FutureLost-

"Hmm... What am I gonna do with all this ramen?" Naruto joked out loud as he finished sorting through his presents with the biggest grin ever plastered on his face. In the end, he _had_ stayed up late. Iruka hadn't joked when he had said that people were finally accepting him. Most of the presents, half of which was home made ramen ingredients, were accompanied by a letter of thanks, usually for having repaired or built them something.

Along with the ramen, there clothes, other kinds of food and various other assorted paraphenalia. After putting everything in its rightful place, Moegi's Amarilla earning its rightful place on his windowsill, he turned to the last two presents he had left. TenTen's and Iruka's. The grin turned into a smile. _'No offense to anyone, but you always leave the best for last.'_

He opened TenTen's first, unwrapping a rather large wooden box. He opened it and his eyes instantly gleamed. "Oh, Ten-chan..." His hands moved to caress the full set of carpentry tools that TenTen had gifted him with, each one glowing in the artificial light of his apartment. A hammer, a chisel, a back-saw, a screwdriver, and so on. There was a little piece of paper too. He opened it.

"'Dear Naruto, hope you enjoy my presents. They're custom-made carpenter tools. Ten-chan guaranteed that they will sustain your efforts for years to come. Also, they can conduct chakra. Happy Birthday.'" He was a bit taken back by the third sentence, then he broke into one of the largest grins ever. "Carpenter tools that I can also use as weapons?! Ten-chan, you're a genius!" _'Now, to Iruka-sensei!'_

Naruto grinned and unwrapped the big box in a flash, finding two different presents inside. "... No way." His eyes went wide as he laid eyes on a Deluxe Ichiraku pre-cooked bowl of ramen. "How the hell... How the hell did he find one? I thought..." His hands pulled out something else from the box. It was a frame with a picture he once owned. His copy had sadly gotten lost in the destruction of his old apartment.

The picture featured five people, including himself at seven. To him, at that age, the other four were all his world. He was standing in the front, wearing his white shirt with an orange swirl and black shorts over his sandals. Behind him were a twelve years old Ichiraku Ayame and her father. Both had died in the battle.

"... Iruka-sensei, you're cruel." There had been only four in existence, one was his own one that he had lost. Then there was the Ichiraku family's one, Iruka's one, and the last one had gone to the last person in the photo. _'Old man…'_

The Sandaime Hokage, who for the occasion had decided to remove his hat, displaying grey hair and a disposition for holding his pipe with just his lips. "... Just what the hell were you thinking?" As he stared at Sarutobi's smiling figure, and he restrained himself from throwing away the frame. The memory of the love and affection he once held for his Jiji overpowered the rage and sadness. He stroked the glass with his fingers before settling it back down on the floor near the ramen. "What happened? Why did you do this to us?"

**'You ask me, he must have been smoking some bad tobacco.'** The feral voice in his mind gave a typically colourful answer to Naruto's latest inquiry. **'But we're probably never going to know for sure. Unless you ask him directly.'**

"Not an option, furball." Naruto retorted, starting to put his last presents away in rightful storing places. "And that's not the only question that's left unanswered."

**'Yeah. Don't know about other villages, but I would have expected at least the rock guys to jump at the chance to wipe those four faces off the face of the earth. On principle, you know? Missions or no missions.'**

"Let's just be thankful they didn't, Kurama." Naruto said, finishing the work quickly with the help of his Kage Bunshin and heading for his bed. "… I wonder what's happening in the rest of the Fire Country."

**'Naruto, you can wonder and wonder, but you know that the only way to know for sure is to leave the village.'** And that happened very sparingly. Most of the information they had came to them from birds of prey they trained for limited range surveillance, and pure speculation. They didn't have the luxury to send out scouting parties. The reviving Konoha had needed all its resources close to home, for rebuilding and protection.

"Maybe we will. Soon." Naruto stated, finally slumping on his bed. "Reconstruction is over, after all. And we have a whole village of people able to defend themselves, now. And I can't be the only one wondering..." The young ninja rotated his head till he was looking out of the window, towards the village wall, as if with will he could see through it and across all the miles that rested behind it. "What the hell is going on, out there?"

**Next Time on Future Lost**

**The Monks of the Fire Temple**

(1): Ninja Art - Smokescreen Technique

(2): Ninja Art - Shadow Shuriken Copy Technique


End file.
